Tell The Truth: This Is A Woman's World...

November 25, 2012

For various reasons, I try never to shop on "Black Friday Weekend", avoiding the post-Thanksgiving madness and the media-constructed frenzy of shop-til-you-drop consumerist Americans and their lemming-like trip to the malls. I've worked in retail too long to see the romance, I don't like crowds, and frankly, the "bargains" of this shopping holiday are overstated.

It's also the case, these days, that I will probably also be working for most of it.

Black Friday this year was notable for a couple of things - one was the encroachment of the shopping into the actual Thursday of Thanksgiving, and the second was a planned, notable, if debatably successful attempt at labor actions outside of many Wal-Marts around the country. Even by the organizers' generous assessments, the number of workers participating in these protests was in the hundreds, though media coverage did clearly amplify the noise and the effect of the protests.

The remarkable thing, really, is that it's taken much of my lifetime for Thanksgiving to be breached by retailers as sacrosanct; only Easter Sunday - and Christmas Day, I suppose - remain as the day of no shopping, and that anachronism may be the hardest to topple, but it's also the one that makes the least sense (at some point, Christian traditionalism will be damned). Literally 20 years ago, I was having conversations with family and friends that one day, obviously, retailers would launch the "Thanksgiving Day Sale" - I mean, heck, one day, Macy*s was sure to notice that there was a crowd of people outside the store after that darn parade, if nothing else - and one more domino would fall on the notion that for one day, at least, we could forestall the real American pastime (shopping, not football).

Let's be clear: we don't close stores for the sake of shoppers. Keeping shopping out of Thanksgiving wasn't some kind of "have respect for this important American holiday, consumerism can wait." No, the point of closing stores was simple human decency for the American worker. Let's take one day, just one day, and nobody, or almost nobody, should have to work. The problem with Thanksgiving, arguably, started with my company, Starbucks; we're the most major corporation I know of that sees no particular reason to close its outlets on any holiday at all. Almost all Starbucks are open on Thanksgiving, for at least some portion of the normal day. Many are open on Christmas. We are almost all open on Easter, normal hours. We close early on days like New Year's Eve and the Fourth of July. But we are open. Always open. And people get bewildered when we close, even for obvious practical reasons, like a hurricane.

But Starbucks isn't just a restaurant - food being the general exception to "closed on the holiday" - we are a retailer, and we are located in shopping centers and malls like the other retailers and we sell more than just drinks and food and we're helping, I think, to erode the idea tbat there's one day, any day, when a retailer should be closed.

And the people who get punished, when we lose even one day of being closed... are workers.

I was struck, this year, by the fact that, however small, people (and the media) seemed to take nte of the workers. It wasn't a big story, and it was surely subsumed by the stories of stampedes and fights and all the attendant madness of crowds. But the Wal-Mart action and the Thursday opens did get people talking, and talking about what these things mean to workers. Which is, after all, almost all of us. We are a nation of service workers, now, and it means that many of us work to serve the rest of us. It's a different equation about work and what we think of people who serve and it's complicated... and I think we're only just beginning to sort out the cultural and social implications, never mind the political and economic ones.

The Wal-Mart action revived the favorite liberal topics of how bad the big W is, how badly its workers are treated... but Wal-Mart in many ways is really just a stand-in for most of retailing, where the wages are low, the hours are long, and the rights of workers mean but so much. Attempts to unionize most retail workers, in or out of Wal-Mart, are rarely successful, and are unlikely to succeed en masse or long term. To say this is to be labeled "anti-union", and I'm not; but the realities are stark. I've been in retail a long time, and I've known many, many of the women (mostly) and men who work there. Don't take my word for it... but most of them are not interested in a union. And won't be. They are students and mothers and transient and free thinkers. Not being organized provides a kind of flexibility and set of options many workers want, and even need. Unions have not found a way to convince retail workers, generally, of their value long term. And still, that's unlikely to change much.

Even more to the point, as I've said before, because we are no longer a nation of mostly manufacturing jobs, Unions do not really respresent the majority experience of most workers in this country now. Yet "Organized Labor" is allowed, mostly by Democrats, to serve as the "Working Person's Voice" even when the policies unions promote don't necessarily refelects the needs and opinions of most workers. What we need, really, is a change in how we talk and think about the issues of work and labor in this country, and try harder to develop a sensible labor policy that reflects who we actually are and what we actually do. That's why, I suspect, the Affordable Care Act has managed, quietly, to be a key selling point of President Obama and the Democrats this past election - it's not perfect, but it makes sure many workers will get health insurance, a practical slution many people need. Similarly with the debates of contraception and abortion - in the place where airy philosophical debates mean less than the practical issues of real people actually face.

I don't think we can "save Thanksgiving" from the retail encroachment; the wall has been breached, business needs have overtaken simple decency and humane respect for workers and their families. We will, as we do, work around these new relaities. We are workers, after all. But I think this year may mark another, more refreshing turning point, one where the discussions around our working lives, and the pratcical need for a life beyond work, begins to become more public, louder, and more insistent. It doesn't mean service workers will unionize, and new laws may not be the answer (certainbly, that's not the whole answer); the change we need is cultural, social... not just political, and not just economic.

And I could go on... but I really have to get on with my day - I have to work this evening.

June 01, 2012

I have to admit... I don't entirely get this; the phenomenon of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" as a YouTube/lip-synch/cover item just mystifies me. The song is tuneful enough (which, among several reasons, is why I wouldn't call it a Worst Song Ever), but pulling out the video camera and shooting a lip synch video with my frat/cheerleading squad/co-workers... not really, no. I suspect that this YouTube phenom is actually the culmination of several trends in pop music that have been bubbling under the radar for a while (the lip synchs, the cover versions, the flash mobs, your nephew, her grandmother...), and ultimately, this may be the New Milennium equivalent of the Mix Tape - remember when you thought you were the only one making mix tapes? And then it turned out everyone did it?

May 23, 2012

Ah, the "Bain Story". It's the campaign narrative that simply refuses to die, no matter how Republicans try to wish it away. Mitt Romney's experience as the head of Bain Capital are both his attempt to prove his business savvy, and his opponents' attempt to paint him as the evil example of the 1%.

I'm not sure a lot of people - even the people who are trying to use Mitt's Bain experience as a cudgel against him - entirely understand why the attacks are working. And working they are. As much as "pro-business" types would like to turn Romney's business acumen into a net plus, as much as some private sector types want to paint Obama as an anti-Capitalist at least (or "socialist" at worst)... the protestations about "demonizing Mitt Romney" tend to underline that the attacks are working and something is sticking, though no one, exactly, can seem to say what it is.

One obvious point is that criticism of Romney, or of Bain more generally, is not, by itself, anti-business. One investment firm's choices are not some stand-in for the entire field private equity, and if there are aspects of the private equity world that trouble people... well, that's probably an ancillary benefit - possibly the only good thing - to come out of this debate. Private equity could stand more scrutiny, and certain practices deserve more consideration, both from a business perspective, and a more human one.

It's that "human perspective" that's probably the real story here, and why these stories of Bain's business practices are resonating with the voting public. It's not that Bain's key stakeholders made millions that really gets people down (bringing me back to an old, and apparently upsetting point for others that being rich and making money, by themselves, ae not bad things, necessarily), but it's the practices they employed to get that money. Specifically, what I think is resonating about these stories is simple and human.... it's the part about the layoffs. And the fact that laying people off seems mean.

One of Mitt Romney's main flaws as a candidate - and there are, after all, so many - is that he seems intent on a cerebral, logical argument for his election. He seems awkward and uncomfortable with direct emotional appeals to voters; he comes off, often, as cold. I'm not even sure these perceptions are accurate, yet they do seem to prevail.

And really, Romeny would be in worse shape if President Obama himself had a real strength in emotional appeal, but really, he lkind of doesn't. As we've all observed on the left... he's no Bill Clinton, in ways good and bad. And one of the bad is that, unlike Clinton, he doesn't establish the kind of immediate emotional connection that Clinton still does, almost effortlessly.

I don't think elections should be won or lost on emotional appeals... but these are difficult, emotional times, filled with uncertainty. Appealing to people's logic and clear thinking isprobably a waste of time. Across Europe, across North Africa and into the Middle East (the "Arab Spring"), it's clear that emotions are driving a lot of people's political judgments. Out with the old. Out with the insensitive. And out with the people who insist we have to think practically, above all else.

Bain's business decisions may, in the B-School sense, make perfectly logical sense. And I don't think "capitalism" is under any threat as a result of ads against Mitt Romney about Bain. Lots of people, even lower level workers, understand that business leaders make hard decisions when it comes to growing and sustaining a business. In practical terms, what's best "for the business" at a particular moment may include retrenchment, closings, firings. But on a personal level, those deciions are, almost always, painful ones. People will be hurt. Lives will be up-ended. There will be pain and suffering.

Mitt Romney isn't suffering bad perceptions about his work at Bain Capital because he seems like a bad businessman or not smart; rather, he's been hurt by these ads because he seems mean, unconcerned with the real-life consequences of firings and reversals and how they affect ordinary workers. And he's lousy at expressing empathy; he continues to talk about life changes and reversals with the distance of abstraction, and the cavalier superiority of someone who has, most likely, never known one. President Obama, no, doesn't do mcuh better; but when the focus is on Bain and Romney's business decisions, the quesiton isn't whether Obama can empathize more. It's whether Mitt Romney can empathize at all.

Conservatives are lousy with this stuff; they see Democrats and liberals as little more than sensitive wet rags, crying for trees, yelling about the poor, hugging the downtrodden and disdaining those who are normal, successful. Conservatives look to emotional appeals as a last resort, and even then, the emotions thay appeal to tend to be anger and superiority. You're better than they are. Be a winner. Let people in need learn to take care of themselves.

Liberalism, too, could probably stand to learn to be tougher, and rely less on these soggy emotional appeals. But by keeping the "Bain story" focused on the sense of bewilderment and loss, the suggestion that we can't turn our government over to someone so incapable of understanding the actual, practical impacts of layoffs and bottom line thinking... Democrats are on to something. It's something that can win this election. The problem of course is... once they win, there's no indication that these Democrats, however sensitive, will be any more help than those useless, cold business types.

April 21, 2012

Just when I think I have experienced most any kind of flu or similar illness, I get hit with something else. Or so it seemed this week when I came down with an intestinal bug, one that has, apparently, been making the rounds.

I have discovered that is actually frightening to be unable to keep any solid food in your system for more than an hour. Also, lack of nutrition makes you lightheaded and occasionally incoherent.

I have also discovered that "I am just one stomach flu away from my goal weight" is really only funny when you don't have said stomach flu.

Since much of this week it has been difficult to form coherent sentences, I thought writing was pretty much out of the question.

I went to the doctor on Thursday. And, let it be said that at least I seem to have found a really good set of medical professionals for my primary care practice, at a clinic designed for people of modest incomes. It is literally amazing every time I go there. This time, the caring older lady doctor diagnosed me right quick, and handed me an easy to fill scrip of affordable medication within 20 minutes of my arrival.

A day and a half later, I am attempting to reintroduce solid foods and get back to work. It may be too soon for both (Thursday morning, when I thought I could handle both, was a disaster, but that was before the pills), but I'm big on trying to get back on the horse as soon as possible. The worst that can happen is... I fall off the horse. Or I wind up in my store's back room, sobbing (somthing I was pretty close to on Thursday morning).

Like food poisoning, there's nothing quite like a stomach or intestinal virus to make clear both the basic necessity of food and the fragile state of one's health when normal food intake is interrupted. Trying to remember to treat myself gently and handle with some care is not the worst lesson to be reminded of... although I could have done without the multiple trips to the bathroom and the feeling that the life was being sucked right out of me.

Anyway, let's see how the next few days go, and hopefully, I can get back to more fully writing my thoughts.

April 13, 2012

The suitcase officially went back into the basement today, so I guess the vacation excuse is officially over. We got back home late Tuesday night (memo to self: Miami remains the worst reentry point into the US of anywhere), and Wednesday was mostly about resting up and feeling settled back home. Yesterday was my first morning back at work, which was fine, but as usual, the early rising and energy reqired at work makes the afternoon and evening after a bit of a wash.

That, and I'm finding it hard to get back into the swing of things, especially writing. Blogging lately, for me, has been an off and on enterprise at best, and, admittedly, more off than on. Writing about politics isn't simply frustrating at this point; mostly it feels simply pointless. Watching TV news and discussion programs - which I do a whole lot less lately - is frustrating and, I hate to admit, depressing. The waste of time and energy spent on useless topics ("our first story tonight: something not very controversial that happened on the Republican primary trail, amongst candidates you don't care about, pretty much all of whom will never be President.") really just floors me.

I'm left trying to fashion a blog out of movie reviews, the occasional pithy observation, and some witty asides about television programs I've seen, and no, I don't think that's much of a life, either. At the same time, I have no interest in simply stopping. As much as I like the idea that someone reads what I write, enojys it, gets something out of it... I write mostly because it fulfills something for me. And still, as I do it, literally as I type this, I feel more purposeful than I have... well, since I scribbled a few words about my vacation from a hotel room in St. Kitts.

There are two other obvious complications: I just got an iPhone for my birthday - mostly because my iPod died and I've come to the conclusion that the BlackBerry Curve, while nice, is technically flawed - and I have to admit, the remarkable number of things it can do (listening to online radio of disco remixes whilst reading the AP newswire, for example) means not even having to use my laptop for most anything. Second, on the job front, I am up for a fairly significant promotion and, when I am realistic, getting that promotion changes my priorities. I'm actually ambivalent, on a quiet personal level, about moving up, because I don't really know if I can sustain writing, even at this reduced level, over the long term while in management. On the better days, I resolve to try. On the worse dys, I just curl into a ball and avoid everyone and most everything.

(None of the last few sentences belong in a blog post that could potentially be read by your boss... but oh well.)

I suppose my point is that "real life" - off of the interwebs - has become the life I'm actually spending more time leading. Interesting things are happening; interacting with real people in real time is emotionally fulfilling; pounding the keys about personal and political frustrations isn't much fun (and frankly, has never entirely been my style). There's no real conclusion here, no absolute "that's it, I'm done", no resolution that I'll try harder to blog more. It might happen... and probably, however well intentioned, it won't anytime soon. Life goes on, I'm back in the swing of things, the journey continues... and that, really, is what matters, isn't it?

April 08, 2012

Long ago - before I started working for Starbucks and my income dropped to 25% of what it had been - I liked to take my Spring vacations in the Caribbean. Back then I had a plan (a life's goal, if you will) of seeing every Caribbean island at least once. And I was doing pretty well with it, too. In the months before I quit my old job, I had even made plans to make my next vacation a trip to Nevis, which seemed somewhat remote and less accessible.

But then I quit my job (and just to be fair, I'm not trying to blame Starbucks for my financial predicament; I made the leap out of corporate life knowing that it would be less money and challenging. Not quite that challenging, but still), and vacation plans became, literally, a luxury I couldn't aford. For several years I took almost no vaccations involving considerable travel (Maine, Canada, that sort of thing), and indeed, almost no vacations at all.

Then I moved back home, and between her financial support (I can't pretend it's not there) and my own mildly improved fortunes, vacations to further off places resumed. There was our lovely trip to Tucson and Sedona in Arizona. We took several cruises (qhich is a quick way to up one's island total, I found).

And this year, I managed to convince her to join my island hopping quest directly.

And oddly enough, here we are, on St. Kitts.

St. Kitts and Nevis are one nation, St. Kitts lying slightly north and east of Nevis, the islands separated by a two mile strait (a moment where the Atalntic meets the Caribbean). Yesterday, spur of the moment, we took a ferry from Bassaterre, the capital, over to Charlestown, the capital of Nevis. Two islands, one vacation.

We have shopped and explored and eaten wonderful food and laid in the sun. Well, technically I have laid in the sun while mom sits in the shade or under an umbrella, rrading a book (the latest Sara Paretsky, on her way to capturing my newest Elizabeth George). My face is red and a little sore, but otherwise, it is a typical tanning adventure. Already in just a few hours over a couple of days, I am several shades darker.

St. Kitts is marvelous, less developed than some of the islands (Nassau, Aruba), not too expensive, with some nice opportunities to eat well, pick up a few duty free items (a watch, some perfume, and my boss's cigarettes), and generally relax. Nevis, as I suspected, is somewhat less developed, but even more pleasantly low key and easy going. And we even managed to shoehorn in some history, seeing the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton (which, for this graduate of Hamilton College, was a treat).

It's the change of pace that I notice the most, not surprising for your average impatient New Yorker... but somehow the cheerfulness and friendliness of most Kittians makes the slow pace tolerable. Our dinner the first night (at a local legendary beachside "shack") took 45 minutes to arrive, what with the crowds on hand for the bonfire and the fire eater (he was quite remarkable). Somehow the wait was just fine. And the food was worth the wait.

Being here, on island time, made getting to writing this post an effort; I have had it in my head for tow days, but life, and wandering, intervened. We only have a couple more days to enjoy, but this trip is already one of the standout vacation choices I've ever had. Now it's off to my morning run and another great cup of coffee at the local coffee place, a cup every bit as satisfying as the ones I get at work.

March 08, 2012

Let me tell you about the very rich,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, buttonholing the reader in his short story “The Rich Boy” (1926). “They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.” Today’s rich are not only different from you and me but different from yesterday’s.

No one who has followed the heedless speculation that led to the 2008 financial meltdown and the subsequent bailouts would think of millennial-era greedheads as being anything other than steel-toed in advancing and achieving their interests; it is the rest of us who appear soft, our trust playing us for suckers. The distance between Fitzgerald’s very rich—now the extremely rich, the 1 percent—and the remaining 99 percent has never been steeper. The 1 percent occupy a higher altitude than the rest of us: their clouds look fluffier; their sunlight gleams with Hollywood gold. In Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis novels and in film classics from the previous century, the rich are portrayed as builders and expansionists, their pharaoh fortunes amassed from steel, brick, minerals, timber, railroads, shipbuilding, newspaper publishing; even those who won their money on Wall Street seem propped on industrial girders. Round-bellied, a watch fob looped from a vest pocket, these bankers and tycoons command offices as grand as railway stations, eat in dining rooms fit for Versailles. What they do and how they live have weight, imprint. The vast wealth depicted in movie/TV drama today is divorced from manufacturing and an invisible army of laborers doing their part; it’s divorced from anything resembling work. It’s floating and caressing, immortalizing.

Now I generally like Wolcott, and I especially like him when it comes to culture watching - he takes it seriously, and he watches a lot - but this one is weak. Never mind the kind of lazy premise, a chance to quickly rope in a wide swath of series television in a highly generalized observation; the problem actually lies in the premise itself - his notion that somehow wealth today is vastly different from wealth in the past. This is just absurd - the first decade of the Twentieth Century was called The Gilded Age for a reason, and it wasn't because the men who made fortunes were "builders and expansionists"; it's because they made enormous profits in their businesses, and even more money in stocks and financial dealings. The Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, Morgans and Whitneys and Astors were not especially different from the wealthy bankers and hedge fund types of today: flush with absurd amounts of cash, spending it on pointless displays of generally poor taste. Wolcott generalizes off of Theordore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis... as if he's never heard of Edith Wharton or Henry James, the real chroniclers of this life of ease and indolence. Indeed, he goes so far as to dress up this middling case with a familiar line from the greatest of these observers of wealth, Fitzgerald himself, as if to miss entirely the point of The Great Gatsby.

I'm not trying to suggest that film and television are doing some great job dramatizing the realities of life as most of us face them; but what's deeply problematic in Wolcott's narrow view is some sense that This Just Happened and It's Not Like How They Used To Do It. The reality is... this is exactly how they used to do it, and it works. And perhaps the most telling failure to see this lies in Wolcott completely overlooking the largest and most tasteless display of excessive wealth: Downton Abbey. Or doesn't that count?

February 21, 2012

The Whitney thing keeps washing in and out of my head... one of my regulars at the coffee shop was at the funeral and called it devastating (he also went to see Aretha Franklin that night, where she paid tribute to Whitney. Also devastating).

In any case, while I gather some strength, here's one more, one I'd almost forgotten, probably her most flat-out jazz number, a big album cut on "Quiet Storm" and "Smooth Jazz" stations after Whitney came out. I loved this one.

January 06, 2012

My Friday Field Trip Report is about coming home last night after a short (4 day) jaunt to Maine, a new family tradition you might recall us starting last year. Like last year, everything kind of fell into place at the last minute, reuniting the same group for a second go round of food, festivities, and family time. And again, a good, warm time was had by all.

I said last year... families are weird. This year wasn't so much about how different we were, but, for me anyway, how similar. This year we found more time to spend together as cousins - me, my cousin Christine, and cousin (if not exectly blood related) Jamila. It's complicated... but only on paper.

In person, we make quite a team - we managed a half day road trip to Brunswick to help Christine renew her international Driver's License (she's off again to Mozambique next Monday), shop for shoes, and do a quick tour of Old Navy. Christine and I played hosts of What Not To Wear with Jamila, suggesting new outfits - which was fun, but also depressed me, because I can't stand the show's hosts and the way they try to make their makeover recipients feel bad about themselves.

LIke much of this past year, the trip to Maine was ultimately sort of bittersweet, more good than bad, but something of a mixed bag, at least for me. Which is not to say I didn't love the company of family; to a person, it was wonderful to see them and reconnect (and typical of our stays in Maine, Mom and I actually see less of each other there than at home, even staying in adjoining rooms).

The bittersweet was more about places and memories - thinking of my father's side of the family and how estranged we are, for instance. And the increasing sense that so many bad memories I have lately are associated with Boston - from leaving my old jobs, to having to move, to the collapse of one of my close friendships. Driving home, we listened to a local NPR discussion program about problems with the "T" subway system in Boston, which reminded me how frustrating the commute was, for no comprehensible reason. And it's winter. And it's dark. And it's cold. My family isn't weird. But I am.

(There's also the part about the dreadful decision - which was entirely me - to stop and spend a night at a Motel 6 on the way up. Inexpensive to the point of being depressing.)

But in the end, the pluses outweighed the minuses. Mom and I stopped at a little German market that her sister recommended, stocking up on yet more German and Swedish specialty foods, always enjoyable, and we even tried their little cafe, which had delicious foods and an especially magnificent hot chocolate. We also stopped, as always, in Freeport, where we both found some bargains at the outlet stores. And we made it home in plenty of time for me to restart my viewing of The Vampire Diaries, cause I'm a teenage girl - with TV plans - at heart.

The best, and brightest moments, in Maine, were those quiet ones spent close to the fire, talking with family about times past and present, our hopes for the future, our views of the world at hand. My Uncle makes a mean fire, with all the seriousness and dedication required, as he does most things (and, my Aunt reports, he now approaches vacuuming and ironing with this same precision and seriousness, leaving her free to go out and about). That, plus his encyclopedic knowledge and love of jazz makes for some pretty comforting evenings of warm conversation to a relaxed beat. Keep the home fires burning... and maybe some of that bittersweet will get smoked out. Or something. Now it's back home, and soon it's back to work. And, right now... that's okay.

December 31, 2011

I know this may surprise you, but live long enough in New York City, and you will discover that this truth makes for occasionally great people watching and also events that, in the long run, are pretty mundane. When I saw Molly Ringwald at a birthday dinner for one of her friends, I was struck by how ordinary, how simply New York she seemed. It's who we are. It's what we do.

Similarly, when my friend Jennifer and I ate a late lunch one day at Fred's, the restaurant atop Barneys on madison Avenue, we were both surprised and yet unfazed to discover we were sharing the otherwise largely empty restaurant with Chris Rock, his wife and kids. Nice, fun to share... but mostly we were there for the food (although, while the food is good - and pricey - in the end, I keep going back to Fred's because you never know who you might see).

So Friday night I got to spend a little leisure time in Manhattan, with Michael, my other red headed pal. Michael have been friends for several years, and he remains my truest connection to gay life in Chelsea and Manhattan generally. Edward, his especially stylish, and youthful, boyfriend is also a big part of my keeping up with the absolute latest.

Anyway, the three of us share generally fancy food tastes, though Michael and I also share a common love of cheap Chinese (indeed, it's kind of a litmus test for friends that we share an appropriately cheap Chinese meal), Edward will have none of it. So instead of finding a fairly fancy Asian, we decided to go with Le Grainne, a charming French bistro at 21st and 9th, where we've dined before - mainly crepes and sandwiches along with some pasta, this is one of those "little places" that's more about being known to the locals than being one of the top spots. From 23rd down, you can really find tons of these (something similar up the East side, but I find the Upper West more about trendy and less about quality).

Anyway, it was a night of lovely food and our usual outrageous and funny conversation - we share similar dark and witty senses of humor - and wonderful all on its own... but then Edward looked over and spotted Evan Rachel Wood. Now, I know enough about movie stars to be able to identify Evan Rachel Wood by name, but not really by face. But Edward pulled up her pics on his iPhone and confirmed.

Apparently, Ms. Wood is best known these days for playing the Vampire Queen of Louisiana on True Blood.

But really, it wan't like we were stalking her, and I made Edward come away from staring at her through the side window (but really, he was just checking out her date). But it was a genuine sighting.

And she's lovely. But mostly, I think we just appreciated her good taste, as well as our own. And anyway, Ethan Hawke lives just across the street, so that really doesn't count.